Massimiliano Blasone

Izakaya Japanese cuisine, that is to say very informal, but prepared in an elegant setting. This is what defines restaurant Zuma, which in its Italian version is located in Rome, at Palazzo Fendi, where a visit can offer a chance to sense all the different nuances in a dish, mostly coming from Japan. Sushi, Robata charcoal grill (cooking both meat and fish) and a more classic range for those who dislike surprises, what with soups, tempura and salads. You can enjoy the high quality raw materials.

Talented chef Massimiliano Blasone guides the kitchen team. He arrived last year to take on the Italian restaurant signed by Rainer Becker, after some significant experience, also in the capital. In fact his first great cooking experience, in 1999, was at the then Hilton Cavalieri and at tri-starred restaurant La Pergola, where he worked for around eleven years, alternating his work with Heinz Beck to his travels around the world visiting to prestigious restaurants.

Going back in time, Blasone’s background includes significant experiences at Valentino in Santa Monica, Duomo in Ragusa, at Heinz Winkler in Germany, at Onice di Villa La Vedetta in Florence, at Rossellinis which was then at Palazzo Sasso in Ravello and at Il Montalcino within Castello Banfi, in a mix of foreign oriented curiosity and soundness based on Italian tradition. He also worked in the opening of Apsleys at the Lanesborough Hotel in 2009 (and for 3 years) in London, and at restaurant Nikita in Malibu, in the States. In both cases as executive chef.

His current job is at Zuma, where the chef became an attentive interpreter of distinguishable and good sense Japanese cuisine but always elegant and thrilling, for clients that are not necessarily Roman and more than often seek glamour.